"You oily priest--you! You mock me, do you? I will see if I cannot find means to make you speak--" and he unconsciously clutched at the knife in his girdle; his blood boiled with rage and he hardly knew what he was doing.
"What do you want, my Lord?" said Wyso coolly. "Would you like to rip my body up? That would do you no good--I have not written the secret on parchment and then swallowed it!"
Reichenberg stood for a moment speechless from astonishment, then his arm dropped as if suddenly sobered. Reflection came back to him and he understood that his efforts were wasted on this half-drunken cynic.
"The devil only knows what you priests are bound by," he muttered and put his knife back into its ivory sheath.
"Take a little nap, Count Reichenberg," said Wyso, smiling mischievously, "when children have not slept they are always ill-tempered. God grant the dinner may be blest to you! it must have cost us at least twenty gulden, everything included." The Count turned away and walked moodily to the window. "Go now, my Lord, and if you do not want to make an end of me, do not disturb me any more in my noon-tide sleep," said Wyso, laying his arms on the table and his red face on them, and pretending once more to be asleep.
"Count Reichenberg," said the Duke laughing, as Reichenberg went out into the courtyard, his spurs ringing as he walked, "Have you any more progeny in these parts? If so pray tell me beforehand, for your humour is enough to spoil the weather for our journey."
"I have given it up, my lord, and must wait for better times to take the matter up again," answered Reichenberg shortly.
The Duchess now appeared walking between the Abbot and Donatus, and ready to set out on her journey. The maids of honour followed, very ill-pleased, for they had been beyond measure dull, and the Countess Hildegard walked foremost with a broad-brimmed hat and trailing peacock feather on her pretty head in the place of the golden chaplet. She fixed her longing eyes immoveably on Donatus, but he did not venture to lift his gaze to her, and the fine Florentine rouge fell off her cheeks that turned pale with vexation.
The sundial indicated four o'clock in the afternoon; the Duke had had the horses saddled and the outriders had already started. The litter was led out and the Duchess got into it.
"Farewell, my Lord Abbot," she cried once more. "Farewell, Donatus. Bear in mind the words I spoke to you and do not fail to apply to me if ever you are in need of help."